I see the buying and selling of houses as a highly personal and very individual activity. The processes are pretty neatly divided into the stuff my clients should know and the stuff that they count on me to know. On a macro, micro, and in-between scale, I take care of the big picture so together, we can get to the details as quickly as possible. What I’ve found most often, in the years I’ve been doing this, is that people are less concerned about the mile-high view of the Toronto housing market than they are with what’s happening in their particular case.

In other words, it’s not about the Toronto housing market, it’s about the specific house they’re buying or selling.

From the big picture to the small one, here are three things I have found to be pretty consistently true:

1. THERE IS RARELY A RIGHT TIME.

Whether you are buying or selling in the Toronto housing market, your decision to act will usually have something to do with other things in your life than how the prices are currently faring. Instead, it’ll be driven by a desire to get into your first house, the need to move up or downsize, or any of the many reasons that people have for reconsidering what they call “home.” Whatever your reason for entering the market, the ongoing trend has been for prices to go up, so acting now is generally a better idea than waiting.

2. THE MARKET MATTERS.

There’s a dynamic that I enjoy with my clients that comes from their ability to benefit from my experience and knowledge, while they define the parameters of what we do together. That means they count on the currency of my experience, which comes from working in the Toronto housing market every day. At the same time, I won’t let them feel like they’re making decisions blindly. It’s how we work together to define a strategic approach to pricing, or how quickly we act when making an offer. To me, knowing the Toronto housing market means knowing what’s reasonable, given current circumstances. For my clients, being able to accept what the market says, about how much you should be ready to pay or expect in payment, is a vital concept.

3. IT’S NEVER PERSONAL.

To a certain point, the real estate business is driven by personalities. A huge part of why I love my job comes from what I get from the relationships that naturally form through the processes of buying and selling in the Toronto housing market. If you think about it, that makes sense, especially when you consider how connected a real estate transaction is to the way people choose to live their lives. The concept of “home” is a vital thing, but the transaction itself – I mean the actual deal through which the ownership of a home becomes a matter of exchange – is the least personal aspect of the process. The deal is always immune to emotion. That’s why negotiation skills are important for arriving at an agreement, it’s where market knowledge matters most, and it’s why everything seems to breathlessly stop throughout the back and forth. When the agreement has been signed, and the terms considered and acted upon, good feelings come back into play again.

Thinking about buying or selling? You might want to download my Buyers Guide and Sellers Guide.